Doug on Cloud

A VMware vCloud Director Mini-Primer

VMware used to be a hypervisor company. Then it became a company with a hypervisor surrounded by a bunch of management tools. Then there were more and more management tools, along with storage.

Then the third parties really kicked, building apps that tie into richer versions of the hypervisor. Before long VMware was a full-blown platform company.

In fact, many customers buy a range of related VMware tools that transform large swaths of internal datacenters.

One key product for building private clouds the VMware way is vCloud Director (vCD). Virtualization Review contributor David Davis knows a thing or two about vCD and was kind enough to share that wisdom in a recent piece.

First, vCD is software that can turn an existing vSphere system into a private cloud by adding multitenacy and self-service.

From the IT view, it supports the creation of groups of virtual machines to support specific workloads, all with security and network configuration applied.

Remember when I said VMware was a platform company? If you don't get it now, you'll understand when you try to set up vCD, as you need to have a VMware platform in place.

Here's what you must have: At least two ESXi hosts running under a vSphere setup, as well as vCenter and vShield.

If you just want to play around, you can download a vCD virtual appliance, which is free for two months.

Have you built a VMware-based private cloud or are you thinking of one? Share your thoughts at dbarney@redmondmag.com.